


the fruits of his labor

by PrinceEverhard



Category: Naruto
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Mokuton User Haruno Sakura, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceEverhard/pseuds/PrinceEverhard
Summary: Sakura inherits a Will of Fire (and also the mokuton)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 196





	the fruits of his labor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not dead! Here, have a frenzied oneshot written because I could not stop thinking about a tumblr post.

Sakura settled her back against the trunk of the big tree, letting out a whisper-quiet breath that couldn’t even really be called a sigh. It hadn’t been hard to find a tree with a hollow under the roots big enough to tuck her teammates away in. It had drawn her, despite being surrounded by the forest, a lodestone in the distance. She had hidden her teammates away, hoping they would be safe enough there if they were found. Sakura could hardly keep them safe and fight at the same time; Sakura was afraid she’d barely be able to fight at all with how exhausted she was. 

She’d gotten the idea of how to move her teammates from sensei’s brief explanation of the shunsin. Sakura had used Naruto’s jacket to hold him around her shoulders in a clumsily executed fireman’s carry so that she could move him and Sasuke at the same time. Once she had them both off the ground, she’d cycled her chakra through her muscles for more strength instead of more speed. Even still, it had taken just about all her strength to get them to the hideaway.

Naruto’s unconsciousness worried her more than she cared to admit; he was always so reliably quick to bounce back from pretty much anything that had been thrown at him. Funny how something she’d previously seen as annoying had so quickly become a comfort. But now, he was just as out cold as Sasuke. Whatever Orochimaru had done to him had him down for the count. Sakura shuddered. 

If the fact that they’d been attacked by one of the Sanin hadn’t been enough, he’d had a direct interest in her favorite teammate. Sasuke’s state made her wish the proctors were watching them a little more closely. She’d forfeit all their promotions in a heartbeat if it meant being back under the safety of the village jounin, where someone could look at the deceptively innocent-looking seal on Sasuke’s shoulder. Never mind the chakra that occasionally seeped from him, feeling so thick and viscous in the air it was like walking through fog. At least it’d stopped around the time that Sasuke had stopped whimpering in her arms.

Sakura let out another long breath and let her head rest on the trunk. Her arms and legs were already so sore; tomorrow would be a nightmare if Sasuke and Naruto hadn't woken up yet. Her limbs felt heavy and achy despite- or maybe because of- her chakra assistance. Her head felt heavy, bark digging into her scalp where she let her weight rest. Even her eyelids felt heavy, her nervous blinking slowly becoming a stuttered slideshow of the forest around her. The day’s events weighed her down until she felt so tired she could barely even lift the kunai clutched in her hand.

A soft wind blew, drawing a wisp of hair from Sakura’s hasty ponytail and tickling her just under her nose. Sakura sat bolt upright, pulling her kunai in front of her before she registered just how much sense her surroundings weren’t making. 

Gone was the thick, oppressive forest of the training grounds. Gone was, well, almost everything. Sakura glanced around what amounted to a wide, rolling field. Grass stretched on for what must have been miles, bordered by trees that she could faintly see displayed an array of different seasonal colors, fruits, and blossoms. Behind her, Naruto and Sasuke both lay stretched out in the soft grass. Their expressions looked peaceful- nothing like the twisted agony and clammy foreheads of when she’d hidden them- but a more natural, relaxed state of sleep. Naruto was even snoring softly. Sakura turned away to look in front of them. There, maybe thirty or fourty feet away, was a massive peach tree. Its branches swayed in the wind, blowing toward her a soft sweet smell like… apples? Sakura was on her feet and tiptoeing toward the tree before she’d even realized she was moving. The kunai fell from her limp fingers into the grass.

Up close, the tree was even stranger than she thought. The large branches were laden with fruit, but it was like no fruit that Sakura had ever seen before. They looked almost like peaches, vaguely heart-shaped and fuzzy. But their coloring was like a mango, red sides shading to green as her eyes moved across it. Was it dangerous? They clearly weren’t in the forest of death anymore. Could she trust it? Caution had a short-lived and ultimately futile battle with curiosity. Sakura reached up and plucked one of the strange fruits, turning it over as she pulled it down.

The First Hokage’s face looked up at her from the skin of the fruit.

Sakura let out a very dignified and not at all childish shriek and flung the fruit from her hands. It landed somewhere behind her with an oddly heavy thump and she spun around to look for where it had landed. She spotted it quickly, of course, because from it flowed a strange wooden vine. Up, up, until it was at least the height of a man- the height of the First Hokage, Sakura guessed, because the wood formed itself into the hokage- and she came face-to-face with one of the most legendary shinobi to ever exist.

First Orochimaru, and now this? Sakura’s weirdness quota had been more than met for at least the next decade.

The First Hokage smiled at her. “Haruno Sakura.”

Sakura somehow swallowed down whatever she’d been about to say, because the First Hokage was standing in front of her and  _ he knew her name _ . “Lord First,” she replied softly, bowing slightly.

He walked toward the tree, beckoning her to follow. She hurried over to his side. He reached up and pulled one of the fruits from the tree. “Eat this,” he said, holding it out to her.

It still had his face on it. Sakura wrinkled her nose but took the fruit from his hand, turning it over so that the bare side was up. She looked up at the First, hundreds of questions running through her mind. A sense of urgency suddenly stole over her, as if she was running out of time. So she forced out a “Why?”

His smile was warmer, paternal, but a little sad. Sakura wondered how much he’d been able to smile living through a time of great war. “You are the inheritor of my Will of Fire,” he said. He gestured to her teammates. “The Uzumaki. The Uchiha. Both are destined for greatness.” The First knelt to look her in the eye. He pressed her forgotten kunai into her empty hand. “As are you, Haruno Sakura. Eat.”

Approval, recognition, pride- they all flowed through Sakura, warming her down to her toes. She raised the fruit to her lips and took an incautious bite. It tasted like cherries, but also not? There was a strong herbal, syrupy undertaste, like “... cough syrup?”

Sakura woke with a start, her kunai gripped white-knuckled in her hand. Her chakra felt like it was almost roiling inside of her, great waves of energy just waiting to burst out. The Hokage’s words echoed in her head. Hands trembling, she pressed them together to gather her courage before she pressed them to the ground and let some of her chakra pour out.

Saplings burst from the ground, growing at least a foot before Sakura yanked her hands back in a mixture of alarm and amazement. As she moved away the growth slowed and slowed until it just looked like a small copse of tiny trees. She looked from the impossible growth in front of her to her own hands. Forget the next decade; her weirdness quota had probably been met for the next century.

The taste of cough syrup still lingered in her mouth.


End file.
